The increase in electronic commerce in recent years has also led to a rapid growth in computer crime. In particular, financial transactions over computer networks proved to be a major target of attacks, where the attackers are using a variety of techniques such as phishing. As an example, at the time of this writing, almost all major banks worldwide are under attack by various forms of identity theft, and while the financial losses are significant, the more important danger is that of bank users losing confidence in online banking.
It has become clear that the old recipes for protecting client-server connections over insecure networks (as e.g. user passwords or their combination with one-time passwords) no longer provide the necessary level of security. Attackers use a combination of more and more advanced techniques, such as man-in-the-middle attacks, phishing, DNS spoofing, and malware (e.g. viruses and Trojan horses). In this context, new protection techniques are required to secure financial online transactions.
The present invention can prevent most man-in-the-middle, phishing, and malware attacks on for example net bank applications, online investment applications, and online entertainment applications.